Speakers International Conference on Human Rights and Environmental Protection

Prof. Dr. Paul Lemmens is currently the Belgian judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. He is the founder of the Faculty of Law's Institute for Human Rights later merged with another institute unto the Leuven Institute for Human Rights and Critical Studies. He studied law at the University of Antwerp and at KU Leuven and obtained his law degree (“Licentiate in Laws”) in 1976 (magna cum laude). He subsequently obtained an additional Master's Degree in Law at Northwestern University, Chicago (1978). In 1987, he obtained his PhD (“Doctorate in Laws”) at K.U.Leuven. Paul Lemmens began his academic career as a research assistant in constitutional law (1976-1977) and civil procedure (1979-1986). He was subsequently appointed professor and in this capacity he has taught international human rights law, and also civil procedure, administrative procedure and constitutional law.

He was also a councillor (judge) at the Belgian Council of State (Supreme Administrative Court) (1994-2012) and a member of the UNMIK Human Rights Advisory Panel in Kosovo.

Paul Lemmens was also a member of the Council of Directors of the European Master's Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation, based in Venice. He was president of the Flemish Interuniversity Center for Human Rights , a member of the Commission for Legal Science of the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders. He has served as an expert for Belgium on the group of legal experts of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency.

In the past, Paul Lemmens was a member of the Brussels bar , the Belgian Commission for the Protection of Private Life, the Board of the Center for Equality of Chances and Combat against Racism , and the National Commission for the Rights of the Child.

He was a visiting professor at Northwestern University, where he worked in close collaboration with Prof. Dr. Douglass Cassel.